Holes
by Meadowridge99
Summary: A wrongfully convicted teenager from a cursed family is sent to a brutal desert detention camp, where he is faced with the fake-nice Mr. Pendanski, the ornery Mrs. Ma'am, and the cruel Warden, who make him and the other campers dig a hole every day in the hot sun.
1. Chapter 1

There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. There was once a very large lake there, one of the largest lakes in Texas. However, that was over a hundred years ago. Now it is just a dry, flat wasteland.

There was once a town of Green Lake as well. It dried up with the lake, and so did the people who lived there.

During the summer, the daytime temperature hovers at almost a hundred degrees in the shade—if you can even find any shade. There isn't much shade in a big dry lake.

The only trees are two old oaks on the eastern edge of the "lake". A hammock lies between those two trees, and a log cabin stands behind that.

The campers are not allowed to lie in the hammock. It belongs to the Warden. The Warden owns the shade.

Out on the lake, scorpions and rattlesnakes find shade under rocks and in the holes dug by the campers.


	2. Chapter 2

You, as the reader, are probably wondering: Why would even go to Camp Green Lake?

Most campers had no choice. Camp Green Lake is a camp for boys who had broken the law.

If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, he will become a good boy.

At least that was what some people thought.

Stanley Yelnats was given a choice. The judge had said, "I could send you to jail, and not lose one bit of sleep over it, but I don't know what good that would do. There is currently a vacancy at Camp Green Lake. They help troubled youth build character. The choice is yours: Camp Green Lake or jail."

Stanley's mother asked the judge if he would allow them time to think about it. He advised to think quickly; "Vacancies don't last long at Camp Green Lake."

Stanley had never been to camp.


	3. Chapter 3

Stanley Yelnats was the only passenger on the bus, other than the driver and the guard. The guard sat across from the driver with his seat turned sideways to face Stanley. A rifle lay across his lap.

Stanley was sitting about ten rows back, handcuffed to his armrest. His backpack lay on the seat across from him. It contained his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of stationery. He promised he would write to his mother at least once a week.

He looked out the window, although there wasn't much to see—just fields of hay and cotton. He was on an eight-hour bus ride to nowhere. The bus was not air-conditioned, and the hot, heavy air was almost as stifling as his handcuffs.

Stanley and his parents and grandfather had tried to pretend he was just going away to camp for a while, like rich kids do. When Stanley was younger he used to play with stuffed animals and pretend they were at Camp. He called it Camp Fun and Games. Sometimes they would play soccer with a marble. Other times they'd run an obstacle course, or go bungee jumping off a table, tied to broken rubber bands. Now Stanley tried to pretend he was going to Camp Fun and Games. He thought maybe he would make some friends. At least he'd get to swim in the lake.

Stanley didn't have any friends at home. He was from a poor family. Most of the other kids were rich.

He looked at the guard, who sat slumped in his seat, wondering if he had fallen asleep. The guard was wearing sunglasses, so Stanley couldn't see his eyes.

Stanley was not a bad kid. He was not guilty of the crime which he'd been convicted of.

All Stanley's life, he seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. His grandfather, Stanley Yelnats the Second, said it was all because of some hundred-and-thirty-year-old curse.

He smiled. Whenever anything went wrong, they always blamed Stanley's no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

Supposedly, one of his great-great-grandfathers stole a pig from a one-legged gypsy, and she put a curse on him and all of his descendants. Whenever anything went wrong, it felt good to blame someone.

Stanley looked out the window at the vast emptiness. He watched the rise and fall of a telephone wire. In his mind he could hear his father's gruff voice singing to him.

" _If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,_

 _"The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies."_

 _While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,_

 _He cries to the moon,_

" _If only, if only."_

It was a song that had been in his family for over a century. His father and grandfather used to sing it to him. The melody was sweet and sad, but Stanley's favorite part was when his father would howl the word "moon."

The bus hit a small bump, and the guard instantly sat up.

Stanley's father was an inventor, but not a successful one. To be a successful inventor, you need three things: intelligence, perseverance, and at least a little bit of luck.

He had all of those things except luck.

He would work on projects for years once he started them, often going days without sleep. He just never had even the slightest bit of luck.

Every time one of his experiments failed, he would curse his dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-grandfather.

Stanley's father and grandfather were also named Stanley Yelnats. Stanley's grandfather's full name was Stanley Yelnats II. His father was Stanley Yelnats III, but he went by Stan. Our Stanley is Stanley Yelnats IV.

Everyone in his family named their son Stanley because it was "Yelnats" spelled backwards. Stanley was an only child, as was every Stanley Yelnats before him.

All of them also had something else in common. Despite their bad luck, they were always hopeful. As Stanley's father would often say, "I learn from failure."

"Not every Stanley Yelnats has been a failure," Stanley's mother often pointed out, whenever he or his father or grandfather believed in the curse. Stanley's great-grandfather, Stanley Yelnats The First, had made a fortune in the stock market. "He wasn't so unlucky."

But she often forgot the bad luck that had befell the first Stanley Yelnats as he was moving from New York to California. He lost his entire fortune when his stagecoach was robbed and his first wife murdered by the famous outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow.

If that had not have happened, Stanley's family would be living in a mansion on a beach in California. Instead, they were crammed into a tiny apartment that reeked of burning rubber and foot odor.

 _If only, if only…_

The apartment smelled that way because Stanley's father was trying to find a cure for foot odor. "The first person who finds a cure for foot odor will be a very rich man", he had once said.

This project had also led to Stanley's arrest.

The bus ride became increasingly bumpy because the road was no longer paved.

Stanley had actually been impressed when he first found out his great-great-grandfather had been robbed by Kissin' Kate Barlow. He would have much preferred to live on the beach in California, but it was kind of cool to have an ancestor who was robbed by a famous outlaw.

Kate Barlow didn't actually kiss Stanley's great-grandfather. That would have been really cool, but the only people she kissed were the men she killed. Instead, she robbed him, killed his first wife, and left him stranded in the middle of the desert for over two weeks.

"He was _lucky_ to have survived," Stanley's mother often pointed out.

The bus began to slow down. The guard stretched his arms and grunted. "Welcome to Camp Green Lake," he said.

Stanley looked out the dirty window, but he didn't see a lake.

And hardly anything was green.


	4. Chapter 4

Stanley felt somewhat dazed as the guard unlocked his handcuffs and led him off the bus. The bus ride had taken over 8 hours.

"Be careful," the driver warned as Stanley walked down the steps.

He wasn't sure if the driver meant for him to be careful going down the steps, or to be careful at Camp Green Lake. "Thanks for the ride," he said to the driver. His mouth was dry and his throat was beginning to hurt. He stepped off the bus, onto the hard, dry ground. The handcuff had left a band of sweat on his wrist.

The land was barren and desolate. He could see a few run-down buildings and some tents. Outside the buildings, there were boys in orange jumpsuits. "Yo, fresh meat!" someone yelled.

A bit further away there was a cabin beneath two tall trees. Those trees were the only vegetation the little town seemed to have. Stanley didn't even see weeds.

The guard led Stanley into a small building. OFFICE was written next to the door. Below it was a sign which said that it was a violation of the Texas Penal Code to bring weapons, drugs, or explosives onto the premises.

He couldn't help but think to himself, "well, duh!" as he read the sign.

Stanley followed the guard into the building, where he felt the welcome relief of an electric fan.

A woman was sitting behind a cluttered desk. She turned her head when Stanley and the guard entered, but otherwise did not move. Her face was covered with freckles, and her long, frizzy red hair was pulled back in a braid. Even though she was inside, she wore sunglasses and a cream-colored cowboy hat. Her sleeves were rolled up and she chewed on sunflower seeds and spit the shells into a jar. She also held a can of soda, which made Stanley even more aware of his thirst.

Stanley waited as the guard gave the woman a clipboard of papers to sign.

"What's with the sunflower seeds, Lou?" the guard asked. Stanley got the feeling the guard knew the woman well. He probably accompanied all of the new delinquents to Camp Green Lake.

"I quit smoking last month," said the woman. Her voice was soft and she had a tattoo of a rattlesnake on her right forearm. Its rattle seemed to wiggle as she signed the papers. "I used to smoke a pack a day. Now I eat a sack of these every week".

The guard laughed.

The woman spit out more sunflower seed shells and turned to Stanley. She glanced at the files the guard had given her.

"Stanley Yelnats…The fourth?" Stanley nodded. "Yeah. Everyone in my family names their son Stanley because it's 'Yelnats' backwards. It's like a little…tradition."

"My name is Mrs. Ma'am," the woman said. "Whenever you speak to me, you must call me by my name. Is that clear?"

Stanley hesitated. "Yes, Mrs. Ma'am," he said, though he doubted that was really her name.

"This ain't a girl scout camp," Mrs. Ma'am said. "Understand?"

Mrs. Ma'am stood up. She was a very tall woman, taller than him by a couple inches.

She produced two more cans of soda from a small refrigerator behind the desk. For a second, Stanley thought maybe one was for him, but Mrs. Ma'am handed them both to the guard and said one was for the driver. Stanley actually felt sorry for the driver and the guard when he thought about the long, hot miserable bus ride. Mrs. Ma'am saw him eyeing the soda cans.

"You thirsty, Stanley?" Mrs. Ma'am asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Ma'am," Stanley answered.

"Well, you better get used to it," Mrs. Ma'am said. "You're gonna be thirsty for the next eighteen months." Behind him, the guard snapped the soda can open. The guard nodded to Mrs. Ma'am and left the building and stepped onto the bus. Stanley saw the bus speed away from the camp.

Mrs. Ma'am stepped outside too, to give Stanley a "tour" of the camp.

"Look around here, Yelnats," she said, walking ahead of him like a true cowgirl. "What do you see?"

Stanley looked out across the vast wasteland. There was nothing to see.

"Any guard towers?" Mrs. Ma'am asked. "Or an electric fence?"

Stanley shook his head. "No, Mrs. Ma'am."

"You wanna run away?" Mrs. Ma'am asked him. "Go ahead, start running. I won't stop you."

Stanley didn't know what kind of game Mrs. Ma'am was playing.

Mrs. Ma'am turned to one of the buildings, and to a boy glaring at them from the old wooden porch of the building. "I'm warnin' you!" she yelled.

"You heard her, Spence!" a man in a cowboy hat said.

Stanley then noticed that she had a revolver in a holster on her belt.

"Oh, don't worry," Mrs. Ma'am said, tapping her holster. She pulled the revolver out. "This here's for the Yellow-Spotted Lizards. I wouldn't waste a bullet on you."

"I'm not going to run away, Mrs. Ma'am," Stanley said quietly.

"Good thinkin', Yelnats," Mrs. Ma'am said. "No one runs away from here. You know why? 'Cause we've got the only water for a-hundred miles. Our own little oasis. You wanna run away? You'll be buzzard food by the end of the third day."

Stanley was led into a small shed filled with supplies. Inside there was an older boy, maybe a year or two older than Stanley. His light-brown hair was slicked back to the bottom of his neck, and his face had an unfriendly look on it. "Hi Mrs. Ma'am," the boy said. The orange jumpsuit was tied around his waist, revealing a white T-shirt.

In the shed, there were shelves of black leather boots and orange jumpsuits. Other items cluttered the small space.

Mrs. Ma'am glanced at Stanley as she threw a pair of boots at him. Stanley caught them, and then Mrs. Ma'am told him to undress.

Stanley glanced uneasily at the other boy, but Mrs. Ma'am just took things out of the shelves.

He sighed, and set his backpack on the floor. As quickly as he could, he changed into a white T-shirt and orange jumpsuit, exchanging his sneakers for the pair of boots. He also had to strip, so Mrs. Ma'am could see he wasn't hiding anything. Mrs. Ma'am gave his backpack to the other boy, who quickly searched it. He received everything inside, and was grateful.

"You get two sets of clothes," Mrs. Ma'am said. "One for work and one for relaxation. After three days, your work clothes will be washed and your second set becomes your work clothes. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mrs. Ma'am," Stanley said, tightening the lace of one of his boots.

"You are to dig one hole each day," Mrs. Ma'am told him. "Five foot deep, five foot wide. Your shovel is your measuring stick. The longer it takes you to dig, the longer you'll be out in the hot sun. You need to watch for lizards and rattlesnakes."

"Rattlesnakes?" Stanley asked.

"If you don't bother them, they won't bother you," Mrs. Ma'am explained. "Usually. Gettin' bit by a rattler ain't the worst thing that can happen to you. You won't die…usually. But, you don't wanna get bit by a Yellow-Spotted Lizard. That _is_ the worst thing that can happen to you. You _will_ die, a slow and painful death. Always."


End file.
